Summer Camp 2009 - Friday Night
Tom Shrader launches the summer camp week with an introductory session drawing on Isaiah 6 as a model for encountering God, seeing one's own sinfulness, receiving God's grace, and responding with a life of service. He frames seven sessions around three themes: a transformed heart, an informed mind, and a radical life, addressing questions students carry about identity, guilt, God's love, and the power to change. The session closes with prayer and an invitation for students to open themselves to what God might do during the week.
“There's not one thing you can ever do to make him love you more. And there's no sin that you can ever commit that will make him love you less.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Summer Camp
Recorded: 2009 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 39 min
Themes: encountering God, identity, guilt, grace, sin, service, transformation, calling, teenager, student, new believer, feeling unworthy, struggling with identity, searching for purpose, summer camp, young adult
Scripture: Isaiah 6:1-8
Theological Themes: Isaiah 6, conviction of sin, sanctification, becoming holy, divine call, repentance, Holy Spirit, biblical authority
Full Transcript
Welcome and Setting the Tone
This week can change your life. Over the years, we have seen God change dozens and dozens of students' lives. I don't care where you are coming from — whether you are a kid who has been writing and journaling since last year saying you cannot wait to get back to Point Loma, or whether you are someone sitting here saying you hate this and do not want to be here. God can change your life right now. He is a huge God, bigger than anything that you or I can imagine.
Some of you came back the moment the bus left last year, already counting down to return. Some of you are brand new and a little confused about what is going on — and probably a little nervous, even if you would not admit it. Some of you came because a friend said we are going to San Diego, it is 105 degrees at home and 70 here, so let's go. Some of you have no desire to be here at all — your mom, your dad, your aunt, your uncle, your grandpa, your probation officer, somebody told you that you had to come. I do not care which of those describes you. God can meet you exactly where you are.
When Matt mentioned this being our tenth year here at Point Loma, it brought back a lot of memories. We also did two of these up at NAU before this, which was quite a different experience. Our first time at NAU, we were in a little room we could not get dark, so we were duct-taping plastic over the windows, and Jen and Matt were doing the music. I believe they went home that summer and got married right after that.
Looking back at where we started and seeing where we are now — all the technology, the production — is remarkable. Back then we had an overhead projector with someone just putting slides up by hand. Now there is a great deal more, and I hope it improves your experience. But the same thing we had that very first year is the same thing we have now, and it is the only thing that truly lasts: the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. That is what we are counting on for this week.
The Standard in This Room
When you come into this room, the bar goes up. I want you to have fun. I want you to worship. But when we get to this time of teaching, I want you to get out your notebooks and your Bibles, and I want you to listen. I am going to treat you like an adult — like someone we can respect and talk to. We did not take this message and dumb it down for junior high and high school students. This is God's business, and it is the same level of content I would bring to a group of men or women. I do this little reminder every year at the start, not to call anyone out, but simply to say: when you walk in here, bring your full attention.
Why Everyone Here Has Given So Much
Everything you see this week exists for one singular reason. The dads have been down at the activity area all day yesterday and all day today, setting things up. Tim told me it took him literally two days to get everything in place, and none of what you see is Point Loma's equipment — it was all brought from the church. Your discipleship group leaders have been praying and preparing. Everyone you see here has given their time and effort for one reason, and that may be the most important thing you hear tonight.
Why We're Here
We do this for one reason: we love you. I may not know your name. Maybe we've never met. But I love you. Maybe somewhere along the way we develop some sort of relationship or friendship, but I love you. That's why we do this.
We do this because the most important thing in the whole world that you'll ever encounter in all of your life is what we're going to talk about in these seven sessions. The most important things that are ever going to happen are the kinds of things that happen when you get away from this room and over with your discipleship group leaders. The kinds of things that happen sometimes just spontaneously after a pickup game of basketball or kicking a soccer ball down in the field.
Where You Are in Life
I want to tell you something that I underestimated the first summer camp I ever went to: I underestimated how much life has already impacted you all. I've changed that now. I get it now. I get that some of you are only 12 or 13 years old. Some of you are just moving into junior high and you're intimidated by that. Some are moving into high school — you're too cool to say it, but you're scared of that. Some of you are moving off into college and you are totally confused and don't know what's going on.
What I've learned is that you already have — and it almost makes me cry — things you have to deal with at 13 and 14 and 15. Some of you, life has already just kicked you around tough. Some of you have problems and issues and things that happened to you that ruin anything you can do about it. And some of you have issues because you made bad choices and you caused it. I really don't care what it is.
You've got stuff in your life. The Bible calls it sin. It's the consequence of sin, and it's the consequence of sin in other people's lives. You just happen to be in that family, or in that class, or in that relationship somewhere along the way, and their sin gets on you too. You've got a problem. The problem is sin, and the solution is God.
Get this really clearly: no matter how big all of your stuff is — God's bigger. No matter how big all of the problems are. I know you're sitting here thinking, "I'm the only one. Nobody's ever had it like this. Nobody's ever had this hurt. Nobody's ever had this pain. You can't possibly understand. You're too old. You've never been around." Let me tell you — God hasn't changed. And really, neither have we. Everybody is a sinful person, a struggling person wrestling with huge questions.
Seven Questions We'll Be Answering
I made a list of seven questions — things I was thinking about as I was getting ready for our time together.
The first is: who is God? We talk about this God stuff all the time, but who is He? We get the sense that there's this force or this power or something out there, but who is this God? And not only that, what is He doing? What is He up to? Because sometimes He doesn't look like a very good God, to be accurate with you. Sometimes it looks like — wait a minute, if He's such a great God, why does my mom have cancer? How come there are kids in our class who are just going off to lunch and somebody runs a red light and kills them? How come I hurt so much? What is He up to?
Who are we? Who am I? We see ourselves as all individuals — all different shapes and sizes. But really, who am I? What am I all about? Am I terribly unique? Because there's another side to that question too. Something is wrong — we sense it, don't we? In that intro video, there was a section about time, and there were different pictures — news clippings about students who had been killed, or in a tragic wreck, or something that happened on a football field. What's going on? Something doesn't seem right. It doesn't seem right that people fly planes into buildings. It doesn't seem right that someone I really love and care for has something gone terribly wrong with them.
What is God doing about it? That leads to the question of what the Spirit is doing in our lives. We'll get into this more later, but we believe the Bible teaches that there is one God who manifests Himself in three persons. Is that confusing? At best it's a mystery, but the Bible teaches it, so we know it's true. We know there is God the Father. We know there is the Son — and that's probably who we identify with most, since He is the one who came and lived and died on the cross. And then there is the Holy Spirit.
Jesus told His disciples the night before He died, "I'm going away, and it's for your own good." I remember the first time I read that I thought that has to be something that just blows these guys apart. They had been going along, given three years of their lives, walked away from everything to follow Jesus — and now He says He's going away, and that it's for their good, because the Spirit will come. So who is the Holy Spirit? What does He do? How does He work in our lives? Do we see Him alive and at work today?
And what is God doing, and how can we be part of it? Where is He working? What is His plan? Does He have a plan? Does He use organizations — for example, like the church? Is church just something we dreamt up, or is that part of God's plan?
I sat down and made a list of questions, then condensed them down into these. This isn't going to be a simple exercise where I just say, "Here's the question, here's the answer," moving through all seven mechanically. But in the course of our time together, we are going to answer those questions. We're going to take a look at this and really focus in.
Introduction: Three Things
We are really going to concentrate on three things. I took everything down and whittled it into these: a transformed heart, an informed mind, and a radical life. That is the goal. The way it feels like it is going to go is we will do a little introduction tonight, and then tomorrow morning and tomorrow night we will really focus on this idea of a transformed heart.
What does that mean? If you hang around church — and I am going to guess many of you are church people, but many of you are not — we are going to take some time and explain words we use all the time. We talk about your heart and getting your heart right, but what are we talking about when we talk about the heart? Are we just talking about this organ that pumps blood through our body? And why does it need to be transformed?
Then there is a battle that goes on every day for me, and that battle really takes place in my mind. I find myself doing a bunch of stuff that I do not want to do, and my mind always leads the way. My mind becomes the tool that is the beginning point of that battle.
Then I want to talk about a radical life — a different life, different than anything you see, read about, or hear about. It is a life so different that when you begin to live this way, everybody around you sees the difference. Some of them are going to make fun of you, some are going to ridicule you, some will just say whatever. But some are going to say, wait a minute, there is something so unique and different about you — how did that happen? Is that just the way you are wired? Is that your personality? Are you just a nice person? We are going to talk about all three of those things.
Who Is This God?
Statistics can always be a little off, but generally here is what they say: about 94 percent of people in the United States of America believe in a god. There is no definition attached to that. They mean a force, something out there, something that created it, a higher power, an entity — they do not even define it. They just say 94 percent, so basically nine out of ten people would say there is a God.
Here is what is really important for us. We want to know who is this God? What is He really like? Is He knowable? Can I have what we call a relationship with Him? Is it actually possible to have a relationship with the God who created all of this? And not only that — when you have that relationship, it transforms the way you think and the way you act.
Isaiah Chapter Six: A Pattern
I am going to invite you to open your Bibles to the Old Testament, specifically the book of Isaiah. We are going to give you a moment to get there. For some of you the Bible and the Old Testament may be new, and if it is, just go to the table of contents — do not be embarrassed by that. Look up Isaiah and find where it is. It is roughly halfway through the Old Testament.
We are going to talk a little more about Isaiah tomorrow, but this passage gives us the backdrop for everything we are trying to do. I see four things in this story, and I want to go through them quickly tonight. It is Isaiah chapter six, and it is a model, a pattern that we see in Isaiah's life — and essentially in every biblical character's life, if God gives us enough of the story in His Word.
As you follow along, if you see something that strikes you as we talk, mark it, underline it, make a note, because we are coming back to this tomorrow.
Four Things in Isaiah's Vision
Isaiah is writing this, and he tells us that in the year King Uzziah died, four things happen. First, Isaiah sees God. He has this vision of Him — you see that in verse one: "I saw the Lord." He tells us what he sees, he tells us how He looks, he describes this vision and all its effect. We will talk about that more tomorrow.
Then in verse five we come to the second thing: Isaiah sees himself. The minute Isaiah sees God and has this extraordinary picture of who He is, Isaiah says, I am in real serious trouble here. That is the pattern. The minute I see God and who He is — not when He is just some power, not when I think of Him as the big guy upstairs, not when He is just some force with no definition — but when you actually come into contact with the God of the Bible, what happens instantaneously is you see yourself. And what you see is that you are in real trouble.
Then we come to verse six, and here is the third thing: God moves. Our flinch at this point — and this is what we are going to hammer away at in the next two sessions — our flinch when we understand we are in trouble is to try to do something about it ourselves. All of a sudden I see God, I see His holiness, I see myself, I see my sinfulness, and I say I am undone. There is nothing I can do. But look what happens: God moves. God is the one who takes the action. He moves an angel, and verse seven says He touched Isaiah's lip and his sin is taken away.
That is what I need. Your fundamental problem, and mine, is what the Bible calls sin. And the solution to it is for God's grace to come upon you. It is not for you to clean up your act. It is not for you to fix it.
A Transformed Heart
It is not for you to do something about it. It is for God to do something about it. And He does. What I have at that point is a transformed heart, and now my whole life is about informing my mind so I can live a radical life.
God's Call to Be Sent
In verse eight, God says He is busy in the world. He has a whole lot of work to do and a message He wants to take to the whole world. He wants to see this gospel preached everywhere — in your home, at Rhodes and Mesquite, where you work, at Point Loma. God says He is doing this huge thing and asks, "Who can I send?" And look at what Isaiah says — "Send me." That is what we are going to talk about in our sessions together. We will take that tomorrow, put a lot more context to it, and then explain why the world is the way it is and why you are the way you are.
Questions You May Be Asking
I am not sure why, but for whatever reason I find myself making lists, and here is another one — questions you may be asking in your own mind right now. How do I get rid of this guilt? One of the things I have learned is that all of us understand that something is wrong and that we are guilty. What do we do about it? How do we respond to it?
Sunday is my favorite day at camp. I love Sunday morning out in the amphitheater, and I love Sunday night when we respond to what God has done. Some of you will waste it, but some of you will get it — and a lot of times when you get it, it is Sunday night that it clicks. God does amazing things. One of the things He does is bring so much to bear on you that it begins to break your heart over your sin. You will see students right now — students you cannot even imagine this would happen to — sitting there with tears streaming down their faces, because God does something big in their hearts.
All that guilt is in there. All of us carry it. What do you do with it? I am going to tell you what to do with it.
How about this one: I really feel like I cannot measure up. I am never good enough — not good enough for mom, not good enough for dad, not good enough for teachers, not good enough for the coach. And here is the big one: I am never good enough for God. Is there a way that I can be good enough for Him?
Then for some of you who have heard essentially all of this before, you are thinking: I have been to summer camp a time or two, I have done okay, I am doing all right — but how do I grow? How do I stay motivated? What is it that keeps me moving?
The Challenge of Staying on Fire
I was just reading before I came down, and it captures an experience so many people have. We come to Christ, we come to that moment where God brings it all together, and the term we use is "on fire." Everything is changing — reading the Bible, doing all the things, showing up on Wednesdays. But after a while it just kind of goes away. Can I continue in that? Can I even live this Christian life? Is it even possible to live this thing, whatever that means?
Can I Really Know God Loves Me?
Here is a huge one: Can I really know God loves me? I will probably come back to this again and again.
There are moments in your life that you simply know are significant. You understand that graduating from high school is a big moment. You sense that if you get married, that is a big day. If you have your first child, that is a big deal. You have all those moments in life that are just those moments. I had one of those not long ago when my grandson called me.
Braden called me every day while we were away. He called one day to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" — he had just learned that song. He called another day to push a pen that plays the Iowa fight song, the greatest song ever written. He called one day to play the harmonica. Then about three or four months ago he called and said, "Papa." I said, "Yes." He said, "Sing song." I said, "Okay." And here is what he sang:
*Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong, they are weak but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so.*
It was the greatest sermon I ever heard. It made me cry then and it makes me cry now. He does not understand the full impact of it yet, but what I learned right there is that the rest of his life is just learning what that means.
How about you? I will bet you could sing that song right now. Let us try it. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so.
Now here is the question: Do you believe that? It does not always feel like it, does it? Maybe driving over here tonight you were thinking, I do not know that He does. Here is what I hope you get from our time together: He loves you so much that He sent Jesus to die so that you could have eternal life. And if you are a Christian — if you understand that truth that you are singing — you understand that.
There Is Nothing You Can Do to Change God's Love
There is not one thing you can ever do to make Him love you more. And there is no sin you can ever commit that will make Him love you less. I need to hear that, and I would assume you do too.
I sent a text yesterday — I am into texting, though I am not very good at it, so it takes me a long time and I try to keep my notes short. I texted back: "Life sucks. God is good." That has become my answer. Now, life really is good and there are truly great things, but there are times where I just have to hear this: God loves me.
The Struggle to Change
Can you find the power to change in a real way? You are all over the map. Some of you, this is brand new. Some of you have been around it a long time. But some of you who have been around it have tried to change, haven't you? You have done the thing where you say, "I am going to be good. I am going to do this. I know I am hung up on my own pride and I am going to serve others" — and it does not last.
Your mind takes you to places and you have been on the Internet looking at things. The minute you are done, you are riddled with guilt, and you say you are never going to do it again. But the next day you are right back there. You are constantly fighting with the people around you, you are sick of it, you say it is not going to happen again, and you do fine for about a week — and then something stupid happens and there you go again.
Is there any power you can tap into that will truly transform your life? That is what we are going to talk about.
What to Expect This Week
As I put this together, over the years I have done different things — book studies, chapter studies. This is the most uncertain I have ever been about exactly how this is going to work with you, because I do not have a bunch of cute stories, and I am not taking you through a Bible study book. I am just going to talk to you about those three things and what you are really going to need to do.
For some of you, it is going to be like climbing Mount Everest. You are going to have to really work at this, really listen, really ask God to open your heart, and really want it. But I can guarantee you: we have planned, we have prepared, the band is ready, the dads have done their thing, and your discipleship leaders are ready. Our whole prayer is that you will be ready too.
You need to understand that God loves you, that there is something desperately wrong with you — and it is okay to admit it — but that does not mean there is no way for it to be fixed. The bad news is you cannot fix it. The good news is God will. That guilt can be taken care of. You can have the power to see your life actually change.
And here is what happens when that takes place: all of a sudden you are going to be able to live in such a way that your life is transformed. You are going to have a joy you never thought possible and a peace you only hoped for. It is all through Jesus. It is all about Him who loves you so much.
So that is the deal. I work, I study, I prepare. When you come in here, we work on this together. That is where we will start tomorrow.
A Time of Prayer
I want to take a moment and pray together. Put your stuff down, sit quietly, and let me give you some things to pray about.
Pray that God would soften your heart right now — that He would just break your heart and make you receptive to what He is going to do. Ask Him to open your eyes and your heart so you can hear it. Pray specifically for one thing you want to see Him do this week. One thing. Your biggest dream — maybe it is a friendship to be restored, or something that needs to happen when you get home.
Confess to Him right now the things in your life that are in the way. That sin, that relationship, whatever it is. Maybe it is so big, maybe it is so dark, that you have never said it to anyone else. It does not matter. You are not going to surprise Him — He already knows. Tell Him, and tell Him you want Him to deal with it.
Finally, thank Him. Thank Him for what He has done for you. Even if you are really scraping by right now, you can thank Him for that sunset out there. You can thank Him for something He has done and is doing in your life. And you certainly ought to thank Him that you are here, with an opportunity — before your life is over — to hear the truth.
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God, You are awesome. You are amazing beyond anything we can imagine. We have some kind of caricature of You in our minds — an old man, long beard, white robes. We have some idea that You owe us an easy, smooth life. We have some dream that is fiction, not at all who You are — but it is who we either think You should be or wish You were.
You are a God who loves us so much that You allow us to be at this place, in this time — an amazing place where we can look around and see Your creation, see the ocean, see the sun about to set, and know it will come up tomorrow, and that it works like that all year because You are in control and You created it.
God, You created us. The original intention was that we would live forever, never die, and live in a place called paradise. Sin has ruined that. But You love us so much that in spite of that sin, You gave us a way to find a remedy.
Opening Prayer
You sent Jesus. God, I pray that every student here — whether they hate You and don't want to be here, or whether they couldn't wait to come — it doesn't matter. However big their problems are, however big and tough life might be, or however great it is, that they would feel and sense Your love. That they would know it intellectually, to be sure — we can tell the story and they can nail the facts of it — but that they can actually sense Your love and Your forgiveness. Not some phony emotion, not just raising hands just to raise hands, but a true expression of worship in their life. God, will You do that?
I thank You so much for these students. For the sacrifice their parents had to make, in some cases, to come up with the money to get them here. For others who are here because of scholarships — because of people they don't even know who loved them and gave money so they could be here. God, I pray tonight that we have fun, that we laugh, and that we enjoy the night, but that You really do something big in our hearts.
That every time we come together in this room — and when we come together Sunday down in the most beautiful setting we can imagine — every time, You are here. We are serious. We are focused. We are listening to You. God, I love those questions we got. What I love even more is that You have the answers. God, teach us this week, will You? We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.